


The Fountainbeheading (or, Ayn Rand Writes Meat)

by Opacifica



Category: Homestuck
Genre: A Threat Made On Twitter: Fulfilled, Gen, Objectivism, The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat, Utter Nonsense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 13:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21075416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opacifica/pseuds/Opacifica
Summary: Dirk Strider is an individualistic young puppetmaster who designs modernist narrative and interpersonal structures and refuses to compromise with an ethical establishment unwilling to accept innovation.What if Ayn Rand wrote Meat.





	The Fountainbeheading (or, Ayn Rand Writes Meat)

Dirk Strider laughs.

His body arcs back nobly against the mat where he lays, immediately in the aftermath of having his unremarkable ass handed to him fairly thoroughly. His is a body of long straight lines and angles, each curve broken into planes, untamed like a wild game beast of incredible size and strength. He rests, rigid, one hand at his side, palm open, the other holding a phone to his chiseled jaw. Concentration draws his starkly-carved shoulder blades tight together, the curve of his neck and the weight of the blood in his hands all giving his body the appearance of a statue carved ruggedly from the finest granite.

The wind waves his hair against the sky. It’s neither blond nor red, but the exact color of ripe orange rind.

The stands of the Cantown Memorial Arena are crowded and thrumming with energy, the marketplace of ideas made manifest, as countless individual spectators make decisions motivated by the I - the self - the fundamentally human desire to take part in the grandeur of mankind’s greatest achievements. The alter of capitalism on which the accomplishments of man and his dignity are currently displayed is a simple stage, a structure composed of hard, angular lines of the finest-wrought steel, graceless, but brutal in its functionality.

His raptor-like gaze scours the faces of the spectators from behind shades of proudly uncompromising black glass, their effigies blurred to a single, easily disregarded and nigh-contemptible collective by distance. Ignoring their cries, he continues his conversation with a man he considers as close as any to his equal. His son, brother, and sort of father, in some ways, Dave. Theirs is a relationship that has triumphed over the biological limitations of mankind, a decisive fraternity of pure, individual, masculine will.

Unfortunately (as much as concepts like ‘fortune’ and ‘fate’ can ever truly act upon a man, the indivisible ‘I’ of the true egoist), Dave is failing to get his point on the subject of the artistic merits of the pageantry broadcast across the universe in the form of the groundbreaking work of art, _RUMBLE IN DA PUMPKIN PATCH_.

DIRK: Sigh.  
DIRK: Thousands of years ago, Dave, the first man discovered how to make fire, much to the scorn of his neighbor.  
DIRK: To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego. What I have created may be a three-hour monumentalization of poorly-conceived slam poetry, overwrought displays of violence, and my ex-boyfriend’s uncommonly perky ass, but the fact of the matter is, by taking up the mantle of creation, by disregarding those who would have chained Prometheus to the Caucasus mountains themselves rather than waiting for their gods to strike him down for the egregious crime of producing something of which they never could have independently conceived, I have given you all the greatest gift that a true man can offer another.  
DIRK: I have achieved something.  
DIRK: In such a way, fire, mankind’s servant, was bent so tenuously to his will, a demon made lapdog by the ingenuity of the individual. In this case, we sell a lot of t-shirts, and our brand recognition is off the fucking charts.  
DIRK: Would you, my brother, a creator in your own right, an equal fashioned in my image, impugn me because I choose my own path, because I would Create a work of unmatched and unmatchable quality, because I would see, not an ass, but what can be made of an ass, the nature of raw material acted on by man, steel from ore, stone from an untouched quarry?  
DIRK: Only by living for myself, creating that which I envision, spectacle from ass, statue from stone, am I able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.  
DAVE: lmao ok  
DIRK: Have you changed your mind about cutting off my head.  
DAVE: im also a content creator and the content i create is  
DAVE: not doing that  
DIRK: No authentic creator was ever impelled to action by the demands of his brother. I recognize and applaud your steadfast commitment to the highest of all callings: the rational interest of the self.

The many individuals who have elected as independent agents to bear witness to the proceedings, at this point, are struck into a frenzy at the magnitude of his casually delivered words, even hearing only part of the conversation. Their conduct has nothing to do with the fact that he has been monologuing on a mat below the stage for nearly fifteen minutes.

Dirk observes this with the demeanor of a frigidly handsome automaton crafted specifically for the purpose of inspiring awe. He tries to consider the prior topic, the laughable enterprise unto which his brotherson’s bumblingly Marxist mate would soon find himself delivered, by no real agency of his own.

But he forgets almost immediately. He is looking, instead, at Jake English’s ass.

He does not laugh as his eyes stop in awareness of the ass before him. His face bears the scrutiny like a law of nature - a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It has high cheekbones set over gaunt, hollow cheeks; amber eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint. As he told Dave, he sees not what the ass is, but what can be made of it. What, through the action of man’s ingenuity, it can be fashioned to do.

As land is to be crisscrossed by mighty railroads, as steel is to be smelted and mighty trees split for timber, that ass must be witnessed. Flexed. Bopped, rhythmically if possible. There is political capital to be mined from this ass, as surely as a rock face streaked with rust is to be mined of ore.

DIRK: I’m going to need to call you back.  
DAVE: hold on  
DAVE: we were going to talk about the economy  
DAVE: that was definitely a thing we were going to do before you started spouting nonsense with dead zero provocation

He smiles fondly. At times, Dave views the world with such naive simplicity.

DIRK: Any exchange of words is implicitly about the economy. In the marketplace of ideas, that without inherent value founders quickly, and only the most internally defensible and sound of ideologies can flourish.  
DAVE: my dog  
DAVE: you have GOT to realize that makes no sense whatsoever  
DAVE: theres no perfectly objective space for the interchange of ideas to be received and interpreted outside of sociocultural connotations  
DAVE: we are worshipped on this planet as literal gods  
DAVE: did you forget that part  
DIRK: I am exercising my freedom of association to call Rose instead, and promoting her to my favorite child.  
DAVE: sigh  
DIRK: Your insipid communist of a boywife will never triumph in the political sphere on these terms, so long as the dignity of mankind prevails. His doctrine gives him, as an ideal, only the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others. He offers Earth C and all those residing here only death as its standard.  
DAVE: im hanging up now actually

It is possible that a few of the frothing members of the onlooking crowd are, for reasons of personal failure to assess his arguments or due to some sort of highly irrational impatience with his vital conversation, upset with the present circumstances. Dirk registers this development, with the stoic air of a man who has looked at many, many trains in his day, as refuse begins to rain down on him.

DIRK: A thrown diaper is not an argument.


End file.
